


(you and me) we could go swimming, swimming

by luninosity



Category: Actor RPF, Captain America (Movies) RPF, Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bathroom Sex, Breathplay, Comfort, Consensual Kink, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub, Explicit Sexual Content, First Dates, First Meetings, Friendship, Frottage, Happy Ending, M/M, Oral Sex, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Other: See Story Notes, Past Drug Use, Past Relationship(s), Porn with Feelings, Singer!Sebastian, artist!Chris, discussions of Seb's past happen in chapter two, mention of one instance of past self-harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-05-21 12:34:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6051733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Sebastian needs to be taken care of after a show, and Chris is happy to provide that kind of care.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. in which Chris goes to a party and meets a boy

**Author's Note:**

> So, this first chapter is basically a complete story, if you're here for the "they meet and click and have awesome kinky sex in the men's room" bit. So you could just stop after chapter one. No worries.
> 
> My brain, however, decided that we needed to know about Sebastian's backstory and problematic ex-boyfriend and past tendencies toward depression and occasional drug use and rough sex as self-punishment--again, all in the past--which is stuff we find out in chapter two, in which we get Sebastian POV, the morning after, worrying about/hoping for a call from Chris; and then we get Chris POV again for chapter three, when he DOES call, because he's pretty much in love with Seb already. So just a heads-up on that: chapter two will have possibly triggering issues being discussed, albeit only in discussion and in the context of Seb's past, not on-screen. I shall add tags as applicable, but I don't want to surprise anyone who's just here for the chapter one porn. :-)
> 
> Title from The Front Bottoms' "Summer Shandy": _I got them bad boy blues, baby/ I feel hypnotized by the way you move/ and those big brown eyes/ yeah, that would be great, that would be beach house living/ every night, rest of our lives, you and me/ we could go swimming, swimming..._

Chris Evans liked a party as well as the next guy, he figured, unless the next guy was his own little brother, in which case Chris wasn’t even going to try to compete. No chance of keeping up with the dancing and the melodramatic lip-sync battles. Nope.  
  
The room spilled over with noise: bright as the clink of glasses, vibrant as the colors in dresses and shirts and laughter. The beer was good; Scott had managed to find a decent Irish pub in the heart of New York City, and the walls echoed with stories past and present. Aged wood and the scent of whiskey. Pinned-up flags and football banners. The pleasant buzz of gentle tipsiness on his tongue, in his gut. His brother’d reserved practically the whole place for his own birthday party; they’d be getting a near-private show from the local band. Chris didn’t know the group—their reputation hadn’t made it out to Los Angeles, or even as far as the Evans family home in Boston, yet—but Scott swore up and down that he’d love them.  
  
He took another sip of his beer, leaning on the bar. He rolled up his shirtsleeves, warm.  
  
The pub wasn’t that big, an intimate rowdy setting, but it did have a small stage and a dance floor. A few crew members were coming and going, setting up equipment while the Dropkick Murphys played over the sound system.  
  
He watched Scott’s friends—mostly fellow soap-opera actors and actresses, some old waiter-friends, a few drag queens and passionate civil-rights activists—mingle and jump around and get more drunk on the dance floor.  
  
He didn’t mind being here, and he did like parties. He adored Scott; his family was the most important part of his life, more so than the next blockbuster animated film, more so than his house in Los Angeles or his skill as a Disney artist, and he’d move back home to Boston or out here to New York if Scott ever needed him, or if his mother asked, or if his sisters were in trouble. He’d certainly readily taken a week off for Scott’s birthday bacchanalia. Someone had to make sure his brother got home safe and survived the morning-after—the week-after, in this case—consequences.  
  
And then he finished his beer, annoyed at himself. Scott was an adult. And Chris himself was…  
  
Well, he was also an adult, but he wasn’t their mother. He wasn’t just at the party to babysit Scott. He knew how to have fun, dammit.  
  
He was very aware that sometime in the last few years he’d forgotten how that felt.  
  
He loved his job. He threw himself into the work: the delicate painstaking shades of animation, the grace of the world captured in stylized art and motion. He loved working for Disney, which paid well and let him play with characters he’d grown up alongside. He loved creating, and the sense of satisfaction when he stood back and watched a finished film and thought: yeah, okay, not perfect, I can see where I could’ve done _that_ better, but _that_ part works really well.  
  
He worked a lot. He drew a lot.  
  
He’d bought a big airy house in Los Angeles to be closer to his job. He loved the weather and the art and the film scene; he somehow hadn’t made it to as many museums or musicals or hiking trails as he’d thought he would. He just forgot to go out. To leave his big airy house.  
  
He forgot to meet people. He tried to drink more beer, but it was empty.  
  
Scott thought he needed to get laid. Scott was probably right.  
  
He couldn’t in fact remember the last time he’d had sex. He liked sex. He thought about sex a lot. He had a very active fantasy life, in his shower, in his bed.  
  
That was part of the problem, because some of those fantasies—the things he wanted—  
  
He could barely meet people as it was. He got nervous. Red-faced and anxious and worrying about good impressions. He absolutely could not imagine finding anyone who’d put up with that, let alone a person who’d let Chris push him to his knees and fuck his mouth, or tie him to the bed and gag him and force him through orgasm after orgasm until he was sobbing and coming dry, face prettily wet with tears. He couldn’t imagine someone taking him seriously as a Dominant, watching him weep over Pixar movies and waterfalls; he had no illusions about the way he wanted control, not to hurt someone, _never_ to hurt someone, but to cherish them, to take all of his own perfectionism and dedication and center it in on just that person, an anchor-point, somebody he could care for and take care of and claim as his. A focus.  
  
An eye of the storm for Chris’s tempestuous need to _do_ things, to do them right, the way things should be done.  
  
Someone who could take it all. Whatever Chris wanted to do.  
  
Someone who could keep up with him, and challenge him, and maybe go to Hollywood musicals or to the beach with him, on sunny days, holding his hand.  
  
He knew someone like that didn’t exist. Fantasies didn’t.  
  
He could be at home tonight. Watching a movie, doing some sketches, reading a book about space or wilderness survival. The roar of partygoers rattled off his eardrums, skittered off the walls.  
  
Scott bounded over, trailed by a small entourage of fellow soap-opera cast and crew. “Dude! This girl, back there, totally started crying when she asked for my autograph!”  
  
“So she thought you were someone else?”  
  
“I’m wounded. You’ve wounded me.” Scott took a step back, flung hand to forehead, proclaimed to the crowd, “Slain by my own brother!” Applause followed this statement.  
  
“They want you dead,” Chris noted, and took Scott’s margarita away, and drank half of it.  
  
“Probably true.” His brother waved at someone over Chris’s left shoulder. His character on the show was utterly nefarious in the best cliché fashion, someone audiences loved to hate. His eyes were the eyes of the boy Chris had grown up with, turned into a man when he wasn’t looking. “You can leave if you want. You’ve got keys to my place. If you’re, y’know.” This hand-wave encompassed a whole range of conclusions: if you’re feeling anxious, overwhelmed by strangers, tired from the flight out here; if you need me to come too, Scott’s eyes said, I will.  
  
“I’m good,” Chris said. He was. “It’s not that. Just old, I guess.” Like bruises on his bones, made of glitter.  
  
“You? Nah. Never.” Scott accepted a new drink from someone. This one was pink and orange and had a little umbrella and two cherries in it. “But at least stay for the band. I promise you’ll like them.”  
  
“I was going to—”  
  
And then there _was_ the band. Curtain up. Lights on. Blue lights and silver-and-black drum kit and laughter picked up by a microphone. Bodies flocked to the small stage; Scott stuck fingers in his mouth and whistled.  
  
“Hi,” said the lead singer, and Chris fell in love. “We’re, um, Winter’s Children, and—y’know, um, hi!”  
  
The crowd was cheering; they knew the name. Chris vaguely knew the name, now he’d heard it again; their cover of Green Day’s “Disturbed” had gone viral, albeit not quite enough for any record deal. Scott had played it for him.  
  
Scott had never mentioned that the lead singer had cheetah-long legs, or wavy dark hair just long enough to dramatically escape its messy bun, or pale snowdrop-blue eyes and a wide happy mouth that curled up at the edges like a smile was forever permanently waiting in the wings. Scott hadn’t told him that the boy was adorably clumsy with introductions, or that he licked his lips and glowed right back at the audience like he couldn’t believe his luck at getting to sing for them.  
  
Scott was smirking at him now.  
  
“Oh fuck,” Chris said weakly.  
  
“Told you you’d like.”  
  
“I…”  
  
“I’ll introduce you after. The guitarist, Charles Chu, he knows a guy who knows a guy I worked with on _Days of Our Lives_ , and they’re doing this show pretty much for free, for fun. They only ever charge enough to cover costs anyway.”  
  
The gorgeous singer’d turned around, asking a question of the aforementioned guitarist, doing a last-minute sound check. His endless legs were wrapped in skintight black leather, which also cupped a delectably pert ass. Chris’s hands literally hurt with the desire to find out how he might feel, whether he liked the sensation of that leather over bare skin, whether he liked to be spanked through it or just naked, hand on exposed flesh…  
  
The boy—man? Chris had no clue how old he was; he had an angel’s face with sinful eyelashes, and he moved with a kind of awkward grace, like a baby foal tripping over newfound legs—was also wearing a near-transparent blue-green shirt under a black jacket. Plus multiple necklaces and rings that flickered different colors. And his pale eyes shimmered impossibly huge, highlighted by dark eyeliner, feline and sensual and uncanny.  
  
He smiled, and wrapped long fingers around the microphone, and sang to the crowd.  
  
The band was worthwhile, Chris recognized dimly. They knew a mix of styles; they covered artists from Elvis Presley to Bon Jovi, from Pink Floyd to—with laughter—John Travolta and the _Grease_ soundtrack. They switched era and tempo with effortless ease; they even played the Green Day song, the one that’d made them internet-famous.  
  
The singer, made of clinging black leather and gazelle-height and seduction, curled his voice around vowels and consonants like lovers; he had the faintest hint of an accent, one that came and went like smoke in the night, fleeting and mysterious. He sang as if there was no one else in the room, or as if there was everyone else and he knew each one of their most intimate desires and found a smile for them all in return.  
  
Chris, bespelled, drifted across the pub, closer to the song. He absentmindedly left Scott behind; he avoided giddy dancers. He murmured “Sorry” to someone’s foot.  
  
The singer’s left boot came to rest on a speaker inches from Chris’s newfound spot by the stage. The boot was unlaced and well-worn, vintage; Chris couldn’t stop staring at the line of his ankle, slim black leather disappearing into that boot, the muscle of his calf. He shook himself, breathless; he looked up.  
  
The beautiful singer was looking down at him.  
  
Their eyes caught.  
  
The boy smiled, a smile just for Chris this time, private and sweet as a golden arrow to the heart. Chris felt his lips part, felt himself take the impact gladly.  
  
A loop of hair fell into the boy’s face; he laughed, yanked the hair tie out completely, shook out dark brown waves—and he was back to performing, too good to ignore the rest of the crowd. Chris stood frozen by the stage and tried to recall how to make his lungs work.  
  
He was, he understood, painfully, achingly hard; his cock was rigid in his pants, and he was thrilled to the core, and shocked—how could he want someone so much, how could he have so many firecrackers under his skin, he didn’t even know this person—and he loved every quiver of it.  
  
The beautiful eyes came back to his side of the stage, having lost the black jacket someplace, singing New Order now, lyrics like wine and chocolate across those splendid lips: _every time I see you falling, I get down on my knees and pray; I’m waiting for that final moment, you say the words that I can’t say…_  
  
Chris wanted to say words to him. Chris wanted to watch him get down on his knees. Chris wanted with inexplicable urgency to be the man those eyes, that smile, would wait for.  
  
The singer smiled at him through eyeliner and music and the haze of cigarette and pot-smoke, drifting through the pub.  
  
“Hey,” said the guitarist, into his own microphone, “you guys wanna hear us play something that Seb wrote?”  
  
Blue eyes suddenly got very surprised, and went away from Chris to scowl merrily at his band-mate; not really annoyed, Chris thought, more nervous, but playing it up for the crowd. “No, Charles, they really don’t.”  
  
Seb? Chris thought. A nickname? His actual name? Scott might know, but Scott was nowhere in view.  
  
“They do,” the guitarist—Charles—said helpfully. “Don’t you, guys?” The crowd indicated with screams that, yes, it would very much like to hear something Seb had written. “Okay, sounds good! Sebastian?”  
  
Sebastian. It suited him: elegant and just slightly uncommon and easy on a tongue, a name to be murmured in bedrooms, under covers, over the rustle of silken rope.  
  
“They’d likely much rather hear us play Green Day,” Sebastian tried, demurral half an act and half real, or at least Chris was guessing so from his expression. From the affection in his smile, when he put a hand on his guitarist’s shoulder. “But if you insist…”  
  
“I’ll let you pick. One of your awesome fairytale songs, like ‘The Prince and the Seven-Headed Dragon,’ or something else? That new one? ‘Things That Get Better’?”  
  
“I’m sorry I’m awful at titles,” Sebastian said to the crowd. They cheered at him.  
  
“So, both,” his guitarist said happily, and launched into sparkling rapid chords. Sebastian shot him an indignant look at the lack of warning, and jumped right in and kept up.  
  
Chris got swept away. So did the crowd.  
  
Sebastian was _good_. Catchy melodies, the kind people could sing along to; thoughtful lyrics, the first one obviously highly literate and magical, like nothing else Chris could think of on the radio, like a fairy-story in musical form with a rousing chorus about being a hero and fighting your dragons that got partygoers on their feet. The second one was softer, more pensive but no less memorable: it was a song that knew about battle scars and waved them like flags of promise. It said you could be hurt, terribly so, and keep on fighting.  
  
The whole party got a little quieter, hushed, reflective, after that; they looked at Sebastian, who conjured up a magician’s smile and said, “All right, then, and thank you, and also thank you for inviting us, and I think we should say happy birthday to the person whose party it is, don’t you?” and then started singing happy birthday to Scott from the stage. The entire room joined in.  
  
The rest of the night went by in a blur of music and glitter and one of Scott’s friends needing to be helped to a cab and luscious covers of classic rock tunes. Chris lost his spot by the stage; he hadn’t made it back before they announced two last songs, a simple soulful version of “Hurt” and a wildly ebullient cover of the Foxboro Hot Tubs’ “Mother Mary.” Those lyrics danced through Chris’s heart, then: _I’ll be a saint, I’ll be your man, I’ll do most anything…_  
  
The beautiful singer thanked everyone, and said good night. He was looking at Chris again, across the room. Their eyes met like an electric shock above bobbing heads.  
  
Chris stayed put at the bar, and got water for Scott, and after a while heard the light footfall at his shoulder with a mingled sense of inevitability and apprehension: as if he’d always known Sebastian would find him, and now that they were here, he’d lost the map explaining where to go.  
  
“Hi.” Sebastian slid onto a bar stool, long legs dangling provocatively, eyes even more enormous and guileless up close. This near, he was older than Chris’d originally thought—tiny fine lines at the corners of those eyes, a more mature presence—but still indeterminate, young in the way of fantasy creatures and incubi. “I saw you watching out for people. Making sure they got home safe. Nice of you.”  
  
“I’m a nice guy,” Chris said. His hand was very tight around his current beer bottle; every piece of his body had leapt to attention, and he thought it must be obvious. “You, um…can I get you a drink? If you’re thirsty?” He bit his lip. Inwardly cringed.  
  
“Water would be fantastic.” He’d evidently taken Chris’s dreadful verbal fumblings seriously, as if appreciating the question as more than foreplay. “It does get warm up there. You know. Hot.”  
  
Chris might’ve whimpered. Sebastian had spread those legs a little more, and seemed to not be wearing any underwear. “Um,” he said desperately, and acquired water for them both.  
  
Sebastian took a sip. Looked up at him through eyelashes, consideringly. Cold droplets sparkled on his lips, he licked them away, studying Chris’s reaction. And then he picked up the glass again, and drank half of it, and Chris gazed at the motion of his throat as he swallowed.  
  
“So how do you know the birthday boy?”  
  
“He, um.” He hadn’t expected to talk about Scott. “He’s my brother? Little brother,” he amended hastily. “I’m Chris.”  
  
“So, Chris.” Sebastian smiled again. His dark hair was damp and curling around his face from sweat, from exertion; his voice had acquired an edge of tiredness, but in an unbearably erotic way, unbothered by being well-used. Chris wanted to push him to the floor and strip away all that lazy insouciance; Chris wanted to hear that voice say his name forever. “Makes sense you’d be someone’s big brother. Taking care of people. That something you do a lot?”  
  
“Depends,” Chris breathed. “Do…people…need to be taken care of?”  
  
“People,” Sebastian purred right back, “could use that, after a show…adrenaline, excitement…putting my music on display like that, being naked up there…”  
  
He’d finished his own water; he deliberately reached over to take Chris’s undrunk glass, eyes bright and mischievous.  
  
Chris let him touch the glass, then put a hand down. On his wrist.  
  
Sebastian’s breath caught.  
  
“Sounds like we should do that right now,” Chris said.  
  
Sebastian ran that tongue over those tempting lips again, leaving them wet. “Come on.”  
  
They ended up in the pub’s men’s room, a wild nest of Ireland postcards and rock-band paraphernalia and old-fashioned brickwork walls. The place was relatively large and decidedly clean for a pub toilet; it only had one door, and Chris wanted to panic about the whole public-restroom location but Sebastian was kissing him and he couldn’t think.  
  
Sebastian tasted like ice-cold water and lip-gloss and sweetness; he kissed with his whole body, throwing himself into Chris as if he couldn’t wait. That ardent need broke open old roadblocks deep down in Chris’s chest: this beautiful person wanted him, needed him, had practically begged Chris to take care of him, and if this was a single moment out of some crazy alternate universe he was damn well going to make the most of it.  
  
He put a hand in his lovely singer’s hair. Took control of the kiss. Took Sebastian’s mouth, plundering, licking, devouring.  
  
Sebastian moaned, and melted into him. Excellent, Chris thought; yes, yes, that’s the way dreams should go; and put the other hand on his ass and squeezed. Hard.  
  
Sebastian gasped. Shifted hips against him, letting Chris feel the jut of his erection. Necklaces shivered in silvery susurration; his rings were cool as he worked hands under Chris’s shirt.  
  
Chris lifted the hand. Spanked him, firmly, just once. That perfect black-leather ass.  
  
Sebastian made a sound, a delicious pleading joyful sound. “Yes—”  
  
“Oh, you like that?” He was kissing the line of that graceful throat now; he nipped at exposed skin, hand keeping Sebastian’s head pulled back. He mouthed at the spot, sucked, bit harder: he knew he’d left a mark. Sebastian actually whined, a wordless keen of desire, and got a hand down Chris’s pants.  
  
“Impatient,” Chris said, “aren’t you?” and spanked him for it, three sharp swift times; Sebastian’s knees wobbled dangerously. “No. You don’t get to touch until I say so.”  
                                                                                                                   
That talented mouth fell open. “Chris—”  
  
“Is that what you want?” He stopped, cradled Sebastian’s face in both hands. “Say yes or no, baby, okay? I’ll stop if you want.” He would.  
  
“Yes,” Sebastian whispered. “I mean—yes, I want to. I want—” And then, merriment returning to that gaze, “Yes, _sir_.”  
  
Chris raised eyebrows.  
  
“Or I could go with professor,” Sebastian said, “kind of works with your fashion sense, and that beard…”  
  
Chris growled, hauled him in for another kiss, made sure the beard scraped his face and throat and the raw new mark. Sebastian squirmed very satisfactorily.  
  
“You can say sir,” Chris told him, “when you talk to me. Um…” He’d caught a glimpse of the door; nobody was knocking, but the sight brought back some sobering reality. What _were_ they doing, in public, in a pub men’s room, where anyone could open that door—?  
  
Sebastian followed his gaze, said, “Oh, all right, sir, I can take care of that, hang on,” and took a poster and some tape off the wall, produced a pen from someplace in improbable clothing, and made an Out of Order! sign and stuck it on the door. Then, for good measure, did something elaborate and definitive with a paper-clip and the lock. “Better?”  
  
“I hope you can fix that,” Chris said, studying the lock.  
  
“Sir.” Sebastian widened eyes at him. “Would I get us into trouble?”  
  
“So you can fix it.”  
  
“Of course. When we’re done. When you’re done with me. Unless you’re done already?”  
  
“Might not be for a while,” Chris said, “brat,” and shoved him to his knees on the men’s room floor.  
  
Soft white lights shimmered over equally white clean sinks. Red brick hung in the background, papered over with punk-rock posters and nostalgia for the Emerald Isle. Stall doors stayed shut; the space was empty but for them. The night held its breath, poised.  
  
Chris stood in the men’s room with a beautiful singer at his feet, a dream come true with pale blue eyes and a sassy happy mouth, waiting for his command.  
  
He put a hand on Sebastian’s head. Sebastian shivered, gazing up, kneeling in place.  
  
Chris opened up his pants, slowly; opened his boxers and drew his cock out. He knew those eyes were watching; he saw Sebastian’s lips part with desire.  
  
He wasn’t porn-star sized, but he liked to think he was impressive, especially in terms of girth and thickness; right now he was hard as stone, length flushed and swollen and ready to bury himself in this sweet submissive gift. He’d been ready for that for hours, it seemed; he would do it now.  
  
He pushed his cock between Sebastian’s lips, a controlled inexorable process.  
  
Sebastian, remaining obediently on his knees, tried to lean in and take more. Chris grabbed his head and held him in place. Sebastian whimpered, mouth stuffed full of cock, and went still.  
  
“Good boy,” Chris said softly, and Sebastian’s eyes slipped shut, and came open more gradually, intoxicated by praise. Chris rewarded him with a harder thrust, more to feel and swallow down; Sebastian took him without any sign of discomfort.  
  
He pushed himself deeper, learning the small sighs and little choking noises from rougher thrusts, learning the way Sebastian refused to retreat but instead begged for more with his whole body, with the arch of his back, with the need in his eyes.  
  
He moved a hairsbreadth too fast, too roughly; Sebastian didn’t have much of a gag reflex, if he had one at all, but got tears in his eyes suddenly, as if Chris had hurt his throat.  
  
He stopped, drew back. His cock glistened, wet from that mouth; wetness shone on Sebastian’s lips.  
  
“Sweetheart,” he said, gently, touching Sebastian’s chin—the little dimple there was the cutest thing he’d ever seen, and he resolved to kiss it later— “you okay?”  
  
Sebastian favored him with a half amused, half insulted expression. “I’m fine. You’re awfully big. I like it, I’m just out of practice.”  
  
“Practice, huh?” He tapped fingers over the closest cheek. “Not sure I like the idea of you with anyone else, baby. And I don’t want to hurt you.”  
  
“No one else,” Sebastian whispered back, voice carrying a flicker of emotion like startled birdsong, like velvet rippling in wind, “for—for a while, now. Sir. And you won’t hurt me.”  
  
“You sure?”  
  
In answer, his gorgeous singer shot him a flirtatious look, a challenging conspiratorial playful sort of look—and then slid down, taking Chris to the root, deep-throating him with no hesitation at all.  
  
Chris groaned. Thrust. Couldn’t help it. So good, _so_ good, hot and tight and skilled, just the right amount of pressure and rhythm, and those wonderful curving lips—  
  
Sebastian pulled off enough to smile. To lick his lips, pale eyes dancing. “So you like that.”  
  
“Holy fuck,” Chris said, and put a hand on his head: instinctive, and he nearly took it back, but Sebastian grinned and dove back in. Taking Chris’s cock as if that was all he’d ever wanted. Lips wrapped around the shaft, head bobbing up and down, sounds slick and lewd.  
  
Chris coiled fingers into his hair. Sebastian groaned around his cock. Chris tugged, testing; Sebastian moaned again, tipping his head back, letting Chris take over. Chris tugged harder, and got a lovely reaction; Sebastian’s hips arched, thrusting into air.  
  
He used his grip to force Sebastian’s head back; his cock popped free and rubbed across that open mouth, smearing wet over parted lips, over Sebastian’s upturned face. Sebastian’s eyes were half-shut, dark with desire; he whimpered and licked at Chris’s cock as it pushed back into his mouth. He looked like a poem, like a decadent fantasy given human form: artwork with smudged eyeliner and a see-through cerulean shirt and tented trousers, kneeling on a men’s room floor at Chris’s feet. He took the next thrust down his throat, and the next, relaxing into them, letting Chris use him, letting himself become simply a space for Chris to fuck.  
  
Chris fisted the hand in his hair. Pulled him off one more time, just giving him the tip to suck on. Sebastian whined, looking blissful, sounding frustrated, denied his toy, missing the presence filling his mouth.  
  
“You love this,” Chris said, panting, “don’t you? God, look at you—on your fucking knees for me, just taking it—” He heard his voice with amazement, as if from far away. He did not say these things; he did not do these things; he did not fuck beautiful lead singers with molten eyes and panther-long legs in dirty pub restrooms.  
  
“You don’t even know me,” he said. He pushed a thumb into Sebastian’s mouth alongside his cock, stretching plush lips obscenely. Sebastian moaned, tongue licking devoutly at the intrusion, clumsy and passionate. “You want this. You want me to fuck you, that mouth, god, your mouth—so fucking filthy, sucking a stranger’s cock in a fucking bathroom, Jesus—and the things I want to do to you, and you’d love it.”  
  
He was drunk, himself; he must be. He’d only had four beers, and half of Scott’s margarita, throughout the night. But that couldn’t be him saying those words, making Sebastian squirm on his knees, hips giving tiny futile pushes into nothing.  
  
He shoved his cock into Sebastian’s throat again: a deliberate movement this time, keeping him full, holding the back of his head so that he couldn’t move, not that he appeared to want to. Those glorious eyes were wet around the edges now: Sebastian was thoroughly skilled at taking a man’s length all the way down, but Chris had been rough with him and was unabashedly large and thick, and Sebastian right now couldn’t breathe, held down and choking on Chris’s cock, kept in place by the weight of Chris’s hands.  
  
Sebastian’s own hands were free. He could move; he could stop this, or tap at Chris’s arm, or unfold long legs and stop kneeling. He didn’t. He gave himself into Chris’s touch, Chris’s handling of him, without hesitation.  
  
“So fucking eager for it,” Chris noted, and traced his cheek with a fingertip, rested the hand on the back of his neck. Sebastian’s whole body trembled: one long singing shiver of acquiescence. His face was flushed from the lack of air; when his eyelashes fluttered they left small tear-tracks behind. Chris drew back a fraction, letting him have one breath. Then pushed in again, relentless. The heat of Sebastian’s mouth and throat engulfed his length, surrounded him, drove him on.  
  
He tightened the hand at the back of Sebastian’s neck. The world felt drawn-out, suspended: a dream-time in which anything might be possible. An enchanted single evening. Unreal and glimmering. He said, low, “You’re so good for me, aren’t you? Opening right up for my cock, begging me to fuck you, baby…you want that? You want me to come down your throat, all over your face, maybe, right here on the bathroom floor on your knees, oh, that’s right, you would love it, baby, so fucking dirty, such a little slut for me…”  
  
Sebastian’s body jerked, at that. His erection was straining against his tight leather stage pants; Chris could see the wet patch spreading.  
  
“You like that? You like being my filthy little slut, baby, sucking me off—a fucking stranger, you don’t even know me, you just want me to make you take my cock, over and over—” His head was spinning. He didn’t know where the words were coming from, but Sebastian was moaning around his cock, head lolling into Chris’s hands, mouth slack and swollen and pink, hips moving in unconscious rhythm; Sebastian was his completely, and a kind of primal possessive fire burst through his veins, racing faster with each pump of his heart, with each thrust he made.  
  
He was fucking Sebastian’s lovely mouth harder now. In and out and deep; that elegant throat would be raw, melody hoarse. Because Chris had done this to him. Because Chris had claimed him.  
  
“So good,” he whispered, “I love it, baby, I love the way you look with my cock in your mouth, the way you want it, the way you love it too, so good for me, my pretty little whore, mine, so gorgeous,” and he felt his balls draw tight, felt the tingling ecstasy arc along his spine, and he’d never known, he’d never felt anything like—  
  
He couldn’t span Sebastian’s throat with just one hand, and the other was tangled in dark hair; he squeezed with the hand, though, not enough to cut off air but to hint at it, and he came down Sebastian’s throat, buried to the hilt, as showers of sparks dizzied his vision.  
  
Sebastian swallowed—couldn’t do anything but swallow—again and again. His nose and lips pressed into the curls of hair at the base of Chris’s cock; he seemed lost in euphoria, adrift in sensation, drunk on the words and the physical command. Chris kept him there while the last tremulous fireworks faded and breath returned. Sebastian’s throat worked around Chris’s length as he drank every bit.  
  
When Chris let him up, pulling back, Sebastian licked at him, lapped at him, clumsy weak kitten-flicks of tongue. Sebastian’s cock was visibly rock-hard; Sebastian’s mouth was wet with spit and a trace of Chris’s come, a little spilling onto his chin when Chris rested his softening erection across dazed lips, making them part further.  
  
Sebastian whimpered.  
  
“Yeah,” Chris said, softly, “you do like that, don’t you? Getting even more dirty, covered in me, everything I can make you take…you wanna come, baby? You want to get off like this? Letting some stranger make you come, make you scream?”  
  
“Please…” Sebastian’s voice was ragged but unafraid; his eyes had sharpened a bit from the mindless haze, though he still looked sinfully debauched and enraptured. He looked like someone who’d been freshly fucked—fucked hard and well—and who knew that he wanted more. “Please. Yes.”  
  
“Get up.” Chris grabbed his wrists, yanked him to his feet. Sebastian wasn’t exactly weightless—he was a full-grown man, with shoulders only a little less broad than Chris’s own—but he bent to command with heartrendingly sweet compliance. “Hands behind your back. No touching.”  
  
Sebastian did as ordered. Chris kicked his legs apart, shoved his own thigh between them, put a hand at the small of Sebastian’s back and pushed. Sebastian almost fell, but Chris took his weight; the wall at his back held them both up.  
  
“Get yourself off,” he said. “Like this. You want to come, you come using my leg.”  
  
Sebastian’s inhale was audible, shuddering, heavy with desire. He began rocking his hips, slowly: riding the line of Chris’s thigh.  
  
“Because you want to,” Chris said. “You want to come like this. Like you can’t help yourself, just fucking yourself on my leg, like the filthy little boy you are.” He had a hand resting on Sebastian’s wrists, crossed behind his back; he squeezed them. Sebastian cried out, and moved faster.  
  
“That’s good,” Chris told him, a whisper because he was getting breathless too, watching. “So good for me, god, look at you. You’re gonna come like this, in your pants, for me, aren’t you, baby?”  
  
“Yes—” Sebastian’s voice splintered, fragmented by ecstasy. “Yes, yes, _da_ , please, fuck, _te rog_ —” His hips rocked more rapidly, unthinking now, mindless chasing of rhythm and friction. Chris pushed his thigh up harder, increasing pressure; Sebastian gasped and arched his back and moved helplessly against the new angle.  
  
Chris watched, enthralled. Sebastian had been luminous on stage; he was even more so here, abandoned and surrendered to the onslaught of sensation and the demands of Chris’s hands and voice. He was panting, head thrown back; his hair stuck to his face in dark swirls of joy, and his jewelry glittered, and his face still wore a streak of Chris’s come like a wild decoration. Chris’s own spent cock, hanging limp from open pants, nudging Sebastian’s hip, stirred.  
  
“Please,” Sebastian was begging, hips moving ceaselessly, “please,” and at first Chris didn’t understand, but then he did: permission, he thought, and his body glowed with sudden shocking want.  
  
“You need to come, baby?” He traced a circle over Sebastian’s wrist with a fingertip: light and tantalizing. “You asking nicely?”  
  
“ _Please_ —”  
  
“Okay,” Chris told him, “you can, you can come now, I know you need it, so desperate, look at you, fucking getting yourself off on my leg in a pub bathroom, so come on, baby, come all over your pretty outfit,” and Sebastian gasped like the words’d plunged inside him, and his hips stuttered; he curled in around himself with the orgasm, around the spot where his cock was spurting against Chris’s thigh and his leather pants became more slick with every pulse.  
  
He dropped his forehead to rest on Chris’s shoulder, after.  
  
Chris released his wrists, and Sebastian reached for him blindly; Chris cradled him, leaning back against the wall, occasionally idly moving enough to nudge that thigh between Sebastian’s legs. Sebastian twitched and trembled, oversensitive, but did not protest, even trying to spread his legs more for more sensation.  
  
Chris rubbed his back, steadied him, let their panting dwindle into shared deep breaths. One of the lights flickered, weary, above the row of sinks. Sebastian felt warm and heavy in his embrace.  
  
He thought again: I don’t do this. This isn’t me. I don’t—  
  
But he did. Incontrovertibly, now.  
  
And he felt oddly content. Not ashamed, not anxious, not even shy. As if leaning on a grimy pub bathroom wall, holding a beautiful singer in his arms, having just talked both of them through the most unbelievably filthy erotic episode of his life, was absolutely precisely where he was meant to be.  
  
At peace, he decided.  
  
He kissed the top of Sebastian’s head. Sebastian huffed out a startled but not displeased breath, soft against Chris’s collarbone. “What…”  
  
“Felt like kissing you.” He ran a hand over dark hair; it was impressively rumpled. He coaxed Sebastian’s chin up with a fingertip. “You okay?”  
  
“ _Da_. Yes. I…” A blink, and another. “That was…intense. I don’t usually…I haven’t since…oh no, no, fuck, what you must think—about me—you don’t even know me and I basically climbed into your lap back at the party—”  
  
“I think you had fun,” Chris said, “and I, um, had fun too? I, um, usually don’t either. It’s not—this isn’t me.”  
  
And Sebastian hesitated, then. Winter-blue eyes shifted between colors, grey and slate; drifted to look at brickwork over Chris’s shoulder, then returned. “No. Of course not.”  
  
“I didn’t mean it like that.” Chris caught his arm as he wobbled, taking back his own weight. “I don’t. Mean that.”  
  
“No,” Sebastian said again, exhaling. His pants were a hopeless mess, wet through and sticky from climax, smudged with dirt from kneeling. His eyeliner was past repair, and the lip-gloss had pretty much all ended up on Chris’s cock. Chris wanted to reach out, and did not know the proper protocol for comforting someone he’d just fucked six ways from Sunday in a spontaneous pub men’s room. “No. I know you don’t. You’re…a good guy.”  
  
“Not really,” Chris said. He’d tucked himself back into his pants; he had a chilly damp spot on that thigh, but he was nowhere near as thoroughly ravished as Sebastian looked. “I said…hell, I didn’t even know I could say those things. You—you know I didn’t mean that either, right? Those words. About you.”  
  
Sebastian actually laughed, soft and helpless and fond. “Yes, Chris. I don’t think you honestly think I’m your filthy little cock-slut. I promise.” A glimpse of stress danced over the _your_ , Chris thought, but it was only a glimpse, and it vanished, evanescent.  
  
“I’m really not like that,” he attempted, in case that’d make the stress go away.  
  
But that was wrong too; Sebastian turned away, moved to one of the sinks, examined himself critically. Chris’s hands ached to touch him. Sebastian cupped water in both hands, splashed it over his face; when he turned back crystalline drops clung to his eyelashes.  
  
“Seb—”  
  
“I know. It’s all right.” Sebastian eyed the disaster of his outfit, scrunched up his nose. “I promise you I never have any expectations from the one-night stands, yeah? I know you’re not like that and I’m—we’re good. Fun, you said.”  
  
“Yeah, but—”  
  
“Wait here a sec,” Sebastian suggested, and slipped out the door. A shadow, slim and strong and despoiled, chased by the glint of his necklaces and rings.  
  
Chris, left alone, stared desperately at the sink, the one Sebastian’d just been using. Contentment nevertheless lingered in his bones, deep and profound and languorous; he wanted that again, more, and more. He wanted to feel Sebastian’s sleepy pliant weight against him in a bed, on a sofa, everywhere.  
  
He knew that he’d said something wrong. He didn’t know how to make this right. He felt sticky and exhausted and shaken, like his world’d flipped upside-down without his say-so. A singer with smoky eyes and beckoning lips, and suddenly he was no longer the same man he’d thought he was; exhilaration battled anxiety in his chest.  
  
He’d fucked the beautiful singer. The man he’d just met. In a public men’s room. Without a condom. He’d come in Sebastian’s mouth. Chris’s mouth had said—words like—  
  
His heartbeat rattled his ears. His chest felt tight. He took a breath, counted, let it go. Again. Again. Coping techniques. Therapy-tested. Working, slowly.  
  
He forced himself to think through the anxiety. He’d wanted to fuck Sebastian; Sebastian had wanted that too. They’d chosen. And they’d felt good, after; he knew he hadn’t been imagining that. About the condom—that was probably safe. Despite the flip comment about having no expectations and one-night stands, Sebastian had said something else, earlier. Had said, post-orgasmic and unguarded, _I don’t do this—I haven’t since…_  
  
Since what?  
  
Sebastian hadn’t been bitter, making the expectation comment. Not even sarcastic. Quiet, instead. Resigned.  
  
The sink provided no assistance, though it did give him a steady place to wash his hands. A drop of water plopped encouragingly from the faucet.  
  
The door opened. Cool blue eyes and dark hair slipped through. Sebastian had partly changed; he was wearing jeans, skinny and also black, and had taken off the stage-show jewelry, or most of it. He hadn’t removed the last traces of eyeliner.  
  
He held out a bundle of clothing. “Here. I think your waist is smaller than mine, but we should be close enough.”  
  
Slim-fit navy-blue pants, Chris discovered, shaking them out. Close enough to his own usual style that he might’ve bought the same pair. “I’m borrowing your pants?”  
  
“If you want. Or you can keep them. I have more.”  
  
“Sebastian,” Chris said, fumbling. His fingers felt awkward; he was more naked somehow than he’d been before. “You know I—I don’t—think any less of—if you like, um, what we did, I mean I liked it too—”  
  
Sebastian gazed at him, shook that head, possibly in disbelief; but then came over and helped undo Chris’s belt. “There.”  
  
“Where’d you even get pants?” He looked at Sebastian’s jeans. “Two pairs of pants?”  
  
“From the bus. Even when we play local shows I bring a few changes of clothing. Remind me to tell you about the night we did a show in a microbrewery where the owner kept giving out free pints. Literal showers of beer.”  
  
“That sounds…sticky.”  
  
“But awesome.” The smile lit up Sebastian’s eyes, and the entire sex-drenched men’s room. Thank god, Chris thought, and then wondered why he felt such gratitude. “The amusing part is, I don’t in fact have keys to our bus. Good thing I know how to break in through the luggage compartment.”  
  
“You do?”  
  
“I have quite a lot of skills, Chris.”  
  
“You do,” Chris said, standing on one foot, halfway through pulling on Sebastian’s spare pants. “You do.”  
  
“I didn’t run into anyone, but I believe I saw your brother doing tequila shots with the bartender, when I went past the door.”  
  
“Sounds like Scott,” Chris sighed. “I should probably go find him before he does something I’ll regret…”  
  
Sebastian laughed. He’d wandered over to lean against their wall as if seeking out the memory; he had one shoulder propped against stalwart brickwork, and his right boot had a scuff on the toe, battered black leather like a rock star’s best stereotypical choice of footwear.  
  
Chris finished with his belt—Sebastian’s legs were slightly longer than his, but he was taller overall, and the fit wasn’t that far off—and walked over and held out a hand. Sebastian looked at it, and said, “Nice to meet you?”  
  
“Can I…um…I could…give you my number?”  
  
Sebastian blinked twice, which made him even more cat-like, an astounded kitten with rumpled fur and opal eyes. He looked younger, Chris thought, when surprised. “You’re anticipating booking the band?”  
  
“Nope.”  
  
“But…I said…you know I don’t expect…this was just fun.”  
  
“That was a really fucking stupid thing to say, when I said that,” Chris explained. “Or it wasn’t, because it _was_ fun. I liked it. I, uh, like you. Oh, fuck, never mind.”  
  
When he started to take a step back, hauling his leaden heart along, Sebastian grabbed his hand. “Wait.”  
  
Chris froze, hoping.  
  
Sebastian bit his lip, let it go. “I…could…okay, here.” He had a cellphone in the other hand: an iPhone, but not the newest version. “Tell me.”  
  
Chris did. Sebastian promptly texted him.  
  
“You sent me…a picture of a cat?”  
  
“A Scottish Fold?” Sebastian said. “I don’t know. I think they’re cute. Are you, um, do you want to—to call me? Sometime?”  
  
“Yeah,” Chris said, heart fluttering against his ribs like a bird ready to fly free, “I’m gonna go rescue Scott from tequila, and—and then I’ll call you. Not after I rescue Scott, I mean, but like. Tomorrow? Or the day after? Or—yeah, um, yes. I want to call you.”


	2. in which Sebastian talks to a friend and eats chocolate-chip cookies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short little Sebastian reaction interlude, the morning after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings for mention, all in the past, of:** drug use, Sebastian looking for rough sex as a form of self-punishment after a bad breakup, one instance of self-harm. All this is off-screen and roughly two years ago, only discussed in conversation, when Charles is checking to make sure he's okay now. (He is. He's excited about Chris in a way he hasn't been about anyone for a very long time.)
> 
> Er, apologies to Chace Crawford for making him kind of a dick. He's probably lovely in real life; I just needed someone to play the role of Seb's previous ex-boyfriend, someone who wasn't necessarily an _evil_ guy, but who would (not necessarily intentionally) make Seb feel bad for needing him and being clingy, who'd rather walk out the door than try to work on the relationship, and who used to do things like listen to Seb write a song at home, then suggest, like, one word change, and then show up to band rehearsals going, "I wrote this song with Seb!" Again, not, like, spectacularly evil, just sort of a dick.

“Help me,” Sebastian said despairingly into the pillow. This proved ineffective, because the pillow muffled his voice instead of fixing the situation. “Please.”  
  
“Don’t you have class in an hour?” Charles said, but waved the plate of chocolate-chip cookies at him anyway. Two guitars observed this interaction from stands in the bedroom’s corner.   
  
The whole day gleamed sunny and bright, like new beginnings; the day was mocking him, Sebastian’d decided. The day after one splendid coruscating encounter. The day after one splendid coruscating encounter with the most perfect man he’d ever met: big hands, utterly filthy mouth, powerful shoulders, kind ocean-floor eyes. A man who’d taken him back to a men’s room in a pub and fucked him senseless, until thoughts scattered and he could only surrender and be cherished, and who’d then asked for his phone number.  
  
After having said other words: I’m not really like this, this is just fun.  
  
After having held him in the aftermath. And kissing him with heartbreaking tenderness, asking whether he was indeed okay.  
  
A day later, in possession of Chris’s phone number, his own remaining uncalled, Sebastian hated the sunny bright morning and the entire idea of hope. He was vastly confused.  
  
Charles added, “Stop squashing my favorite pillow. Come on, talk to me.”  
  
“That’s your favorite pillow?” He eyed it dubiously. “They all look the same. And class got canceled. Our professor’s at a conference. So it’s just extra reading. I love grad school. I’m serious, I don’t know what to do, please help.”  
  
“So you liked the guy,” Charles said, sitting down next to him, “and you let him fuck you in a men’s room, and you both had fun, and you’re both consenting adults, so I’m not seeing the problem.” Charles had told him to come right over when Sebastian’d called that morning, after-the-fact shakiness evident on the line; in the fifteen minutes required to navigate from one New York City apartment tower to another, he’d also made cookies and tidied up the kitchen and found a cheery red-and-orange striped blanket.   
  
Sebastian had that blanket over his shoulders. He put his face in his hands; he said, “I don’t—I can’t go back to being—I can’t do that again, I don’t do that anymore, I’m not—I don’t want to, I can’t, I can’t—” He heard his voice crack; he felt the unevenness of his next inhale. He stopped talking.  
  
“Oh. Okay.” Charles was a rock, an unruffled one, beside him on the bed. “Look at me. Breathe, Seb. In, and hold it, we’re gonna count to three, and out. Again. And again. Good, come on, do it one more time.”  
  
He did. It helped. He was nevertheless shivering.  
  
“Oh, fine, come here,” Charles said, and drew him down so that his head rested on his best friend’s thigh, and put a hand in his hair. “Still weird literally petting you. I’m just saying that so you know how much you owe me for the rest of, like, eternity. How’s this?”  
  
“Better.” It was. Not enough, and not at all sexual, but grounding, an anchor. It wasn’t proper subspace, but Charles kept running fingers through his hair and sometimes all over him, and small fragments of tension drained away. “I’ll make you Mama’s ciorbă for dinner. For eternity, apparently.”  
  
“See,” Charles said, “this is why we’re not a thing, you’re such a fucking brat, Seb,” but fed him a piece of cookie anyway. “So, listen. I’m taking this seriously, I swear, so I’m gonna ask you your questions. You wanted to, right? Consent and all that?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“He didn’t hurt you? I know, I know, I mean in, like, any way you _didn’t_ want. Tell me if I need to get out the first-aid kit.”  
  
“No. He was good.” He considered this answer, tacked on, “Not too experienced—I _think_ —but he knew what he wanted. And he checked in with me about how I felt. So, yeah. Really good.”  
  
“I don’t need the details.”  
  
“I never tell you any. Sorry, sorry, I’m taking this seriously too.” He knew Charles would never be entirely comfortable with the idea of his best friend willingly submitting to pain; he knew that Charles would set the discomfort aside to talk through encounters with him if need be.  
  
“You’d better be. I expect dessert after you make dinner. No drugs, right?”  
  
“Double-chocolate mousse pie. And no.” He’d only ever done cocaine four or five times, the last almost exactly two years previously; he’d been curious more than anything, and achingly emptily lonely in the wake of Chace’s door-slamming departure from his life, and needing to feel even artificial lightness again. He’d never been good at being alone; more than one friend had told him so, more and less jokingly, on more than one occasion. He knew that to be true.  
  
He’d liked the high from the drugs; he’d accidentally shown up to one of his very first grad-school seminars still high, and he’d managed to paper over this fact with a lot of charm, but he’d scared himself enough that he’d stopped for good.  
  
Charles asked anyway. Part of the checklist. Reassurance on both sides every time he said no.  
  
“And you didn’t…you weren’t…trying to…” Fingers touched his wrist, brushed a barely visible scar. “Hurt yourself, or punish yourself? With this guy?”  
  
“No. I mean, I don’t think so.” He opened his eyes. Charles had taken care of him on other occasions, older occasions: after nights turned ugly, after strings of random strangers who enjoyed his submission too much and in bad ways. Sebastian liked being submissive, liked being used; these days he knew what the dangerous line looked like, and he stayed on the safer side.   
  
He glanced at his wrist, too. That’d been one time, and only one time, also and not coincidentally just about two years ago. He’d never really wanted to die; he hadn’t wanted that even on that sunless dull morning with a razor-blade in his hand. He’d been hungover, with bruises at wrists and ankles and a sore ass; he’d been afraid and alone and disgusted by the person he’d turned into, and he hadn’t seen a way out.  
  
He hadn’t even gotten that far. He’d seen the first spill of blood, felt the throb up and down his arm, and dropped the razor and called Charles.  
  
And two years later, they were here. On Charles’s bed, with a plate of chocolate-chip cookies and a blanket over his shoulders. Safe, he thought. Here.   
  
They had the band, himself and Charles and Will on bass and Margarita on drums—they’d survived _as_ a band perfectly well minus Chace, and had uniformly thronged together in support of Sebastian, to his shock—and he was very nearly done with that creative-writing masters degree; Charles, when not playing guitar at his side, was working on an acting career, and doing well enough that he could afford a one-bedroom apartment in a much more expensive area than Sebastian’s own grad-student hurricane.  
  
He’d learned to cook, his mother’s old traditional Romanian recipes and new experimental dishes and classic Americana. He liked being able to feed himself; he liked being able to feed his friends. He liked putting ingredients together to make something new. He should probably go shopping before he tried to make dinner for himself and Charles, because while he did sometimes leave ingredients in other people’s pantries he hadn’t made this particular recipe for a while.  
  
He’d almost finished his first novel. Science-fiction and queer romance. He thought he liked the way it was turning out.  
  
He sighed. “I’m okay. And thanks. I wasn’t trying to get hurt. I liked the way he made me feel. I liked him.”  
  
“Which is why you’re scared,” Charles said.  
  
“I don’t do that anymore,” Sebastian said around another bite of chocolate-chip decadence. Sunshine and the eyewatering colorful blanket and Charles had collectively kept petting him, and he was starting to feel more centered. He wasn’t embarrassed about the momentary panic; they all understood why, and anyway Charles had seen worse. “I don’t—pick up the gorgeous older brother of the guy whose birthday party it is, and practically throw my mouth onto his dick in the men’s room. I just—I don’t want to go back to being—”  
  
“I’m pretty sure sex is okay,” Charles said. “You’re allowed to have sex. You’re allowed to have really hot one-night stands with gorgeous men. Still kinda working on the visual. How exactly do you throw your mouth onto someone’s dick?”  
  
“Shut up.”  
  
“Aren’t you a writer?”  
  
“Shut up,” Sebastian repeated, and poked his knee, but mildly, because Charles was taking care of him. “At least I don’t make social media posts that sound like someone’s grandmother trying to test out the hip and with-it cool-kid slang.”  
  
“No,” Charles said, “you just make fun of me every time. Still a brat. And no, I still don’t have any desire to put you over my knee and spank you for it.”  
  
Sebastian sighed again. Charles patted his shoulder. “You said you like him.”  
  
“I think…I do, yeah. This is stupid. This doesn’t _happen_. The hot guy from the men’s room doesn’t call you back and end up being your best-ever dream come true. I _am_ a writer. I should know.”   
  
His dreams were simpler these days. Write his novel. Finish his degree. Make people dance and sing with the band’s music. Stand outside in sunlight and let it splash across his face. Maybe, maybe, have someone to come home to, someone who’d be there, who might look up and smile when he came in the door.  
  
“He said he’d call you, right?”  
  
“He offered to give me his number first. I…don’t know why I didn’t just say yes. I couldn’t think. He was in charge, and then he wasn’t, he was _asking_ if he could call me, he got incredibly shy and started blushing, but I wanted—I liked him.”   
  
“So you gave him _your_ number,” Charles said patiently, “so he’d be in charge again.”  
  
“That would make sense, wouldn’t it…”  
  
“And now he’s making you wait.”  
  
“He said today or tomorrow.”  
  
“Do you _want_ him to call you?”  
  
“I—” He sat up. Bit his lip; let it go. Realized he was smiling, or wanting to smile, thinking of the idea. “Yeah. Yes. I do. I really do.”


	3. in which Chris makes a phone call and makes Sebastian smile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy ending time!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No real warnings here, just implied D/s dynamics and a lot of fluff and happy feels.

Chris waited a day and a half before calling. He contemplated waiting longer, probably should’ve waited longer, shouldn’t come across as too impatient. But.  
  
Sebastian. Those shimmering eyes and that spectacular voice. That fascinating mix of black leather and rock-and-roll chords and brazen appreciation looking Chris up and down—and pure yielding sweetness in his arms, moving against him, reaching climax at Chris’s command. Wonderful competence, too: Sebastian’d handled getting them dressed and put back together while Chris’d been remembering how to form words.  
  
He’d never known he could feel like that. He wasn’t apprehensive, even though he thought he ought to be; he wanted to explore, to try it all.   
  
He’d found more to himself. Not a losing of self but a discovering, with Sebastian.  
  
He wanted to _know_ Sebastian.  
  
He was off the whole week; Scott was out on an audition, and he had the apartment to himself, at least as a house-guest. Ambling out onto the tiny balcony under late-morning sunshine, enjoying wrought iron and city clatter, he made the call.  
  
Sebastian answered almost immediately. “Chris?”  
  
“Hey. I, um. I was just, um. Calling.” Oh, god. “Are you busy?” Some voices echoed in the background. Chatter. A door opening and closing.  
  
“I’m at a Starbucks. Are you…you aren’t busy either?” That luscious voice sounded equally tentative, both of them venturing into uncharted territory. Chris was baffled by this realization; he knew he personally could be a hapless antisocial moron, but surely someone as brilliant and talented and gorgeous as Sebastian got asked out constantly?  
  
He said, “I’m visiting Scott all week. My brother. I mean, you remember, of course you remember. You, um, like Starbucks?”  
  
Sebastian made a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh, wry and entertained. “I think all the baristas here know me by name. I’ve likely put a few of them through college.”  
  
“Really?” He propped elbows on the balcony railing, getting comfortable. “So what do you like, at Starbucks?”  
  
“Um…right now it’s a white-chocolate mocha with toffee syrup and an extra shot of espresso?” Sebastian audibly made a face at himself; Chris had never before met anyone who could put such expression into the inflections of a voice. Like a priceless instrument, rich and layered and full of stories. “I realize how ridiculous that sounds when I say it out loud, but I like it.”  
  
“I like coffee?” Chris offered in turn. “Not as big on sweet as you are, obviously. Or, um, maybe I am, _you’re_ pretty sweet.” He held his breath. He almost hadn’t gone with the line.  
  
But Sebastian burst out laughing, surprised and happy; he managed to rein the amusement in, no doubt because he was sitting in a Starbucks, but the smile came through. “I could say the same for you. And the compliments. Or…I could say that I like being sweet for you.”  
  
Sensations, memories, visuals: they came flying back. Sebastian on his knees, gazing up with those blissful eyes. Sebastian with Chris’s cock stretching those lips wide and Chris’s hand fisted in his hair. Sebastian getting himself off on command, riding Chris’s thigh.  
  
“I do like that,” Sebastian finished, in a tone that said he knew exactly what he’d just done. “What do _you_ like, Chris?”  
  
“Right now,” Chris told him, hearing the rumble and scrape in his own voice, the possessiveness, the want to have those shining eyes looking up at him again, “I kinda want to put you over my lap and spank you for that, until _I_ decide you’ve had enough.”  
  
“Oh.” Suspiciously meek. “Yes, please.”  
  
“And then I want to fuck you. And you’re going to ask nicely when you ask me to let you come, because you like that too, don’t you? Just taking it, my cock inside you, fucking you until you can’t stand it, until you’re begging me for it, the way you need it, and maybe I’ll let you come just like that, or maybe I won’t, maybe you’ll have to wait until I feel like playing with your little cock, baby.”  
  
“Fuck,” Sebastian whispered, sounding genuinely awed. “Chris, I—I—I’m in a fucking Starbucks! That’s not fair!”  
  
“Which Starbucks?”  
  
Sebastian told him. The location wasn’t that far.  
  
Chris took a breath, let it out. “So…if I come meet you right now…”  
  
“Absolutely yes.”  
  
“…can I buy you lunch?”  
  
“…what?”  
  
“You know,” Chris clarified happily. “A first date. With food. Not sex.”  
  
Sebastian swore at him for a full minute in multiple languages. Chris, standing on Scott’s balcony in New York City sunshine, bounced on his toes and grinned at the building across the street; might’ve been his imagination, but he thought it gave a thumbs-up back.  
  
“Fine,” Sebastian muttered, running out of profanity. “Yes, sir. Come take me on a date with actual food and no sex. I’m warning you now I’ll order the sweetest thing on the menu for dessert.”  
  
“And I’ll make sure you eat every bite,” Chris said, “I didn’t say no sex at _all_ , maybe if you’re good and you behave yourself, and I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” and got off the phone.  
  
The anxiety returned, though not in full force, as he stood on the subway. He didn’t like the subway much—too crowded, too many stops, what if he missed his, what if what if—but he could tolerate it for a while, visiting New York.  
  
Visiting, he thought. He’d go back to Los Angeles at the end of the week. Back to work. And Sebastian was in a moderately successful band, and lived in New York, and loved coffee with too much sugar, and—  
  
And what?   
  
And a first date, he thought. And he ended up grinning again.  
  
Sebastian was very much at the Starbucks, when he arrived; had plainly been at the Starbucks for long enough to colonize a long bench-style seat, with an open laptop and two thick books keeping him company. He was wearing his skinny black jeans again, with different battered black boots and a cloud-grey sweater that looked as if it’d been woven from mist. He’d pushed up his sleeves, and he hadn’t put on any stage-presence eyeliner or costume jewelry, though one thin silver chain glinted through the sweater’s collar at his throat; he looked adorable and domestic and cuddly, and Chris stood in the doorway and beamed at him for a second.  
  
Sebastian looked up. Smiled, a wicked unfurling like a pirate’s flag, like a banner, like an invitation. He was, Chris noticed, quite possibly also wearing just a touch of sheer lip-gloss, enough to draw attention to the sweet shine of that mouth. Chris wanted to kiss him, to nibble at those lips, to find out for sure.  
  
Sebastian said, “You came.”  
  
Chris sat down next to him, or rather next to the books—Sebastian moved them, rather guiltily—and retorted, “Not yet I didn’t, and neither did you.”  
  
Pale delighted eyes met his. “Might’ve made a run to the men’s room, before you arrived.”  
  
“Did you?” He took Sebastian’s hand. Felt natural. As did wrapping fingers loosely around that elegant wrist. “Tell me.”  
  
Sebastian deflated somewhat, but he was smiling. “No. I didn’t, sir.”  
  
“You just felt like saying so to me?”  
  
“Ah…maybe?”  
  
“I’ll do something about that later if you want me to.” This made winter-opal eyes sparkle all over again; he was learning to read Sebastian, he thought. He liked that thought. “What’re you working on? Reading?”  
  
“Homework?”  
  
Chris paused, fingers arrested around that wrist.  
  
Sebastian dissolved into laughter. “You should see your face…no, no, I’m sorry…I’m, ah, about a semester and a half away from finishing my MFA. Creative writing. Queer science-fiction romance, mostly, if you, um, want to know.”  
  
“…wow,” Chris said, a little stunned, processing. He said it again: “Wow. You’re, like, a fucking genius.”  
  
“Hardly. I just…I like writing.” Those spectacular eyes got a fraction uncertain. “I write our lyrics. For the band. For the original songs. Not the covers. Obviously. Not many people know that. Charles is making a point of telling people now. But back when Chace—when we had someone else in the band, he, ah, had a habit of putting his name on things.”  
  
“Things that weren’t necessarily his,” Chris surmised. “Things that…were yours.” He twined his fingers into Sebastian’s. “I’m sorry. Not that that fixes it, but, y’know. I wish I could help.”  
  
“You are.” Sebastian looked at their joined hands. “You already are. Chris, you—there’s a lot you don’t know about me. Some of it’s not…not good.”  
  
“I know you like Starbucks,” Chris said. “I know you like making people smile with your music. I know you’re like a billion times smarter than I am, and I know—I hope—you like me holding your hand. And, um, hi, my name’s Chris Evans, I work for Disney, I do storyboards and traditional classic-style animation and, um, concept art, I love every song from _The Little Mermaid_ , and I like dogs, and I can sort of play the guitar and the piano, if you ever need someone on keyboard, and I like holding your hand too.”  
  
“You work for Disney?” Sebastian asked.  
  
“That’s what you got out of that?”  
  
“No,” Sebastian said. “I was just—I thought you might still want to buy me lunch and then spank me for it.”  
  
Chris started laughing.  
  
“I always liked _The Little Mermaid_ ,” Sebastian said. “I know you probably live in California or, like, somewhere in Disneyland, or whatever—”  
  
“Totally. I live _in_ Space Mountain.”  
  
“—and I have one more semester after this and I don’t know where I’ll be after that and I have the band to write for and a novel I want to finish. But I could be in California. Maybe. I could write in California. I could come back sometimes for shows, or we could take everybody on tour. The band’s a side project for all of us anyway, for fun. We can see how it goes. After our first date.” His eyes found Chris’s; his fingers curled around Chris’s. “I wanted to be an astronaut once. Until I figured out I don’t actually like flying. But I still love space. I like cats _and_ dogs. I like to cook. I’m great at breakfast in bed. I know I do like this. You holding my hand.”


End file.
